Drummer Alex Landenburg (AT VANCE, ANNIHILATOR) who stepped in as a temporary replacement for STRATOVARIUS' Jörg Michael on the band's recent European tour with HELLOWEEN, has issued the following update. He was brought on board following Michael being diagnosed with cancer back in November.

"I'd like to take the opportunity to say thanks to Jörg for asking me to step in and to the wonderful Stratovarius fans for accepting me with open arms in this difficult situation. Despite these sad circumstances that led to me doing this tour, I had a lot of fun still.

It was a weird situation....sometimes I almost felt a bit guilty for having such a great time. However, from meeting Jörg right before the tour and seeing that he was doing considerably good already, I knew that he'd back soon and that made things easier right away.

My most heartfelt thank you goes out to Timo, Jens, Mati and last but definitely not least my clone brother Lauri... my bandmates of five weeks! I had such a great time with you, guys... I'm happy things went as good as they did and I'm glad to call each of you a friend.

It's not about touring... it's about having fun — while you're touring!

Finally I wanna thank the 'rest' of the whole tour party....crew, drivers and last but not least the Helloween guys. What a bunch of cool and down-to-earth people!"

Stratovarius will issue their new album, Elysium on January 12th, 2011 via JVC in Asia and worldwide on January 14th via Edel/EarMusic. Audio samples from the entire album are available at this location.

Elysium will be available as a regular CD, two-CD Deluxe Version, Collector's Edition with 7" (pictured below) and LP.

Details of the deluxe digipak edition are as follows:

CD 1:

'Darkest Hours'

'Under Flaming Skies'

'Infernal Maze'

'Fairness Justified'

'The Game Never Ends'

'Lifetime In A Moment'

'Move The Mountain'

'Event Horizon'

'Elysium'

CD 2:

'Darkest Hours' (demo)

'Under Flaming Skies' (demo)

'Infernal Maze' (demo)

'Fairness Justified' (demo)

'The Game Never Ends' (demo)

'Lifetime In A Moment' (demo)

'Move The Mountain' (demo)

'Event Horizon' (demo)

'Elysium' (demo)

7" Single:

'Last Shore'

'Hallowed'

The first single, 'Darkest Hours', was released on November 26th.

The following tracks are part of the single:

'Darkest Hours' (from the upcoming album "Elysium")

'Infernal Maze' (from the upcoming album "Elysium")

'Darkest Hours' (demo version)

'Against The Wind' (live recording, Sofia, Bulgaria)

'Black Diamond' (live recording, Göteborg, Sweden)

Check out BW&BK;'s new interview with Stratovarius frontman Timo Kotipelto here.